In Presence

What does it mean to have an intention? It’s a thought about doing something in the future. It has very little reality, doesn’t it? Perhaps our intention will translate into action, perhaps not. Every intention brings opposition, resistance. It’s a measure of my maturity that I have many fewer intentions as I get older and I tend to keep more of them as I become aware of my tendencies and the consequences of not doing what I intended.

There is another path less travelled, the path of intending. What is intending? Intending is an unpremeditated action of the will in the present. Intending does not need an object to accomplish. It connects inside to outside in a wide open gesture of submission to the moment, an action in and of itself. Things happen whether or not you have thought them.

I watch the small birds while having coffee at an outside café. They unfailingly land precisely on the arm of the chair next to mine. Never a miss. No food here. And off they fly, seeming randomness. Do they think where they are going? No time for that. Do they have an intention? Or are they imbedded in intending, their instantaneous maneuvers guided by an invisible matrix of energy and shared attention.

Can I bathe in this medium so excruciatingly exact and perfect in which plans do not exist, just responsiveness? This mind is quiet, open. Not the closed mind of one who has things to do and thinks the steps, who faces a world of cares and sets a course into an uncertain future. Animals have this other way. Their only fear a present danger, otherwise on the wings of the invisible they are moved, the wind beneath their wings the force of universal intending.

Can I invoke intending and see what happens? Sorcerers say intending can be beckoned with the eyes. Is this true? Strangely, it may be so. Looking into open space seems to connect me to intending.